Until It Fades to Dust
by StrangeLittleSwirl
Summary: You need to rest, Batman.” ...“Crime doesn’t,” was the response, and the line went dead. Barbara's first meeting with Batman, and Harleen comes face to face with the Joker for the first time. Updated December 10th, 2008
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Until it Fades to Dust  
Author: ** strangelittleswirl  
**Word Count: **5876 before the footnotes  
**Rating: **PG-13 (minor swearing, mention of darker themes)  
**Disclaimer:**I do not own Batman or any of the characters. They are the property of DC comics, and this story is based in the Nolan-verse of _Batman Begins _and _The Dark Knight_, which are movies from Warner Bros . The title of the fic comes from the song "Choke" by Hybrid.  
**Summary: **Starting with the apparent death of James Gordon, his niece returns to Gotham City.  
**  
*****

_Blue eyes waver shut._

_It's 6:45 PM._

_There is a whole team of people working on the person in the bed, talking quickly and rushing the stretcher as quickly as possible to the operating room. Gloves are slick and red as the hair across the pillow and mouths are grim, slim lines._

_They say it's never a good sign to see people running in hospitals._

_These people are sprinting._

_The flat, horrific tone of the heart monitor during a flat line echoes and ebbs away into time and space, reforming and changing to become much shriller than before, emitting from an alarm-clock radio on the night stand of one Barbara Gordon. _

_It's 6:45 AM, a year, 364 days, and twelve hours before._

_Blue eyes flutter open._ 1

***

Somewhere along the way, Barbara had developed a pattern. That being said, when her alarm went off, she rolled over and to the edge, tapping the alarm off blindly as she pushed up and off the bed. With her eyes closed, she staggered to the bathroom, already hearing the preset coffee maker gurgling to life in her kitchenette. Perfectly normal.

Until the phone rang.

6:45 AM phone calls are rare, for most people. ConfiTech knew to contact her on her cell phone, as did most of her friends; occasionally her morning jogs would take her longer than she expected, and the phone served as a way to keep track of the time as well.

As a child, this sort of phone call led to a police car outside and an escort to the hospital, where her uncle would pull her up into his lap and she'd see a new scar, a new injury or hole; she'd call him 'Swiss Cheese'. That orange Bentadine stain color still made her feel sick when she saw it.

So Barbara opened her eyes and grabbed the cordless, dread blooming in her stomach as she saw the number on the caller I.D.

"Frankie?"

"Barbara? Is that really you? Oh baby doll, you grew up." The voice was rough on the other side of the phone from years of tobacco. Frankie had been a great cop, a big fellow that had always reminded her of a bear, what with his massive size and head of unruly, curly brown hair. A sigh turned into a cough and the red haired woman waited patiently, leaning in the doorway of her living room, flexing her toes in the cheap carpet. When a few seconds passed, Barbara couldn't hold her tongue.

"How bad is it this time? Should I meet you at the hospital?"

"Wait a second, you weren't called? Dumb new ones, thinking that there was only one Barbara..." Her uncle's friend trailed off, sighing and coughing some more. This did nothing to assuage the young woman. Gritting her teeth and gripping the phone tightly, she made her way back down the narrow hallway.

"Frankie, tell me straight: how bad is it?" Barbara was now back in her room, grabbing her trousers from the day before because they still had a crease and starting to wriggle into them.

"Baby doll," he sighed and she waited. Frankie had never been good with those drives out to inform family members, knocking on doors with cap in hand. Uncle Jim had told him it would never get easier. Uncle Jim...

"He didn't make it this time, did he?"

Somewhere in the distance, she could hear her coffee maker beeping to signal her it had completed its cycle.2 Her efforts to speedily dress slowed and she sat down on the edge of the unmade bed as Frankie continued on, explaining what had happened.

Barbara pulled out that old numbness from its place in the back of her mind; musty and worn, it was a feeling she had wrapped herself in so many years before. It served its purpose now.

Methodically, she packed a weekend bag, folding everything carefully and neatly. With the taste of salt in her mouth, Barbara drove to Gotham City.

There were menial matters at hand; Barbara had offered to accompany her aunt to make plans for the funeral, but had found that some of the men from the unit had already taken care of them. She busied herself with little things: ironing pleats in her cousin's school skirt, sorting the mail, driving with talk radio on. There was quite a bit of work to do, since the evacuation of the Narrows, the family had moved into a slightly better condo in Gotham City proper.3 If she didn't have something to focus on, her thoughts would wander and start twisting downward.

Life would go on, it always did. Her cousins would not be the first children to be raised without a father, and they were lucky to still have their mother. And Barbara would try her best to keep an eye on the kids, to make sure that they didn't make the same mistakes she had in the past.

***

"Oh my God, Barbie, I just heard the news! I am _so_ sorry!" Harleen gushed, turning her desk chair to face the small office window in an attempt for better reception. There was the sound of something wet and plunking in the background, and a hollow, plastic noise as she guessed the phone was cradled between a chin and a shoulder. She must have been doing the dishes.

"Hello, Harleen."

"Is there anything I can do? Are the kids okay? Is your aunt alright? I'll bring a casserole by later." It didn't matter how much time passed between their phone calls or lunch dates, Harleen and Barbara were childhood friends. Even if Barbara had disappeared for three years and refused to talk about it. Everyone had their secrets, after all. And casseroles were appropriate in this situation.

"That's very nice of you, Harleen. Oh-"

As Barbara put her on hold, apologetically, Harleen took a moment to look about her office. Yes, _her_ office, she thought, with satisfaction. As she had accepted a cigarette from the New Arkham Asylum internship director, wrapped in the cheap sheets of his bed, she had been quite adamant about requiring her own office for her work. She had only had to have dinner with him three times afterward before he realized that she was bored with him. It hadn't taken much persuasion on her part to get the paid internship.

Harleen looked down to her desk and to the old photo located there of the Quinzels and the Gordons. It had been taken on the sidewalk between their homes, and they were all huddled around a small, smoking Webber grill. Mrs. Quinzel had a smile that did not quite meet her eyes and Mr. Quinzel had an arm around Harleen, low on her waist.

They had taken good care of Harleen, particularly Mr. Quinzel. He'd taught her a great deal.

She spent her paid time interviewing the patients at New Arkham Asylum. Too cold and sterile for Harleen's taste, the new mental asylum had eaten the area surrounding it in the Narrows. The harsh lights and the echo off of the new and sparkling white tile was a bit too much for the young woman who had spent much of her early life in social services. She couldn't actually count how many times she had been placed in hospitals or homes that had the same ambiance (or lack thereof) that this place seemed to suffer from.

Everyday she drove over the bridge and into the facility, showing her badge and driving with the windows down, as instructed. Some of the inmates would whistle or catcall but Harleen would look straight ahead and ignore them. She followed instructions when it came to her safety. To the letter. Rules were put in place for a reason, after all.

"Back," came Barbara's voice on the phone. "My aunt just called from her job and said there's something going on with one of the kids." She sighed. "I'm afraid Jimmy Jr.'s is picking fights. I've got to go pick him up, talk to him... Can we talk later?"

"Oh course, Barbie, doll. You have to tell me the details for the wake and the funeral service, anyway. Give the family my love."

It was only afterward, after she had hung up and come back from an interview with a great hulking mass of a man who was still suffering from Dr. Crane's fear toxin being injected into his blood stream, that she realized she had ended the conversation improperly. 4

Damn it, she thought as she sidestepped a group of security officers taking down an unruly patient, she always handled situations like that incorrectly. Sometimes it seemed that there was a little something off in how she responded to things like that.

***

Bruce Wayne's office was a beautiful, multiple room suite on one of the top floors of Wayne Enterprises' headquarters. It was accessed by the swipe of an authorized Wayne Enterprises photo I.D. in the elevator. The elevator would exit into a waiting area, where Mister Wayne's secretary sat, a perfectly gleaming smile (paid for by Wayne Enterprises) gracing her face the second the elevator doors opened. Two mahogany doors stood between the secretary and her employer.

The main room of the Wayne heir's was paneled in floor-to-ceiling mahogany. The carpeting was plush and hunter green. Half a century ago, this room would have smelled of cigars and heavy cologne, smells associated with Stuart Wayne, Bruce Wayne's great grandfather.

There was quite a bit of him in his grandson, who currently sat behind the sturdy heirloom desk on an almost daily basis. It was the turn of the mouth and the eyes that were quietly observant.

Bruce Wayne was usually seen about town, the inherited half smile playing on his lips and his eyes usually seeming to shine with some joke that he wasn't sharing with anyone else; there was an air of superiority about him that left people talking behind his back but vying for his attention and approval when he was present.

But Bruce Wayne was presently hunched over the familiar desk, eyes serious and mouth turned down, showing that he was very much Stuart's grandson and Thomas's son. There were worry lines forming on the 31 year old's face that should have been, but that came with the Wayne name. Stuart had tried to figure how he would keep Wayne Enterprises running and profitable while still being ethical; Thomas had thought long and hard before turning the company over to the board members, because his hands weren't meant to shake hands with politicians and businessmen, they were meant to heal and do no harm; Bruce now considered the bleak future for Batman and Gotham City without Lieutenant Jim Gordon in it.

Bruce Wayne turned his chair towards the wide screen, high definition television set into the mahogany paneling, but closed his eyes. Someone in attendance at the memorial had been videotaping, and had sold the footage to the local news station. It was now played on almost every news station.

There was Gordon, stepping in front of that bullet. There he was, falling. The only thing Bruce had gained in the past few days from the constant media coverage was the memory of the man's death from two angles: the one he had witnessed and the one plastered across television screens everywhere.

Alfred had been able to make several phone calls and find out that Gordon would be buried in St. Brigid's Cemetery, a popular choice for members of the police force. It was a private ceremony for close family and friends, only. A city-wide memorial service had still not been announced.

He shouldn't go.

Bruce Wayne had only minimal interaction with Lt. Jim Gordon: a few city functions and that one night, so long ago, when Gordon wrapped his father's coat around him. Bruce Wayne showing up at his intimate funeral might be seen as peculiar.

But a deep sense of guilt, more than the usual that came from his unique line of work, continued to stay with him as he went to board meetings and business lunches. Bruce remembered the little boy with his namesake's eyes, and a photo on Gordon's desk of a little girl. He'd been partially responsible for their loss of a parent. Batman had heard his wife scream it herself.

Bruce picked up the phone and tapped the first speed dial number. Alfred picked before even the first ring was completed.

"Yes, Master Bruce?"

Bruce clicked the television off and collected his suit jacket off of the chair where he had haphazardly thrown it. "Alfred, could you make sure the bike's ready when I get back to the hotel?"

***

"Afternoon, Alfred," said Bruce as he entered the penthouse. He was about to search for his padded motorcycle jacket when he noticed it had already been placed on the bed for him. Alfred shook his head but turned back to the weather report.

"Rain is predicted by the end of day, sir."

"Fitting," muttered the young man, glancing out the window to see the same grey and rolling clouds that Alfred had been eyeing warily all morning. An old friend of his, from the old days of BAF, had taken his motorbike out on a day like this and had been subsequently injured in a horrible car accident. Poor bloke couldn't sit still for long periods of time from the steel pins in his back. It was hell in weather like this.

"Might I suggest taking something a bit safer? Like the Rolls?" Alfred handed him a cup of espresso that Bruce knocked back quickly before changing jackets. The man was going to get killed one of these days, and not during any of his nightly activities.

"Thanks, Alfred, but I think the bike is a little more low-key." Just this morning, Alfred had thought he had been able to convince him to leave the Gordon family in peace to mourn the loss of the Lieutenant. There was something a little reckless about his employer this afternoon.

And an exemplary choice was being demonstrated momentarily.

"Of course, sir. When I think of typical funerals, the roaring sound of an attending mourner on a motorbike is the first thing that springs to mind."

But Bruce was already on his way to the private garage, and was apparently not in the mood to listen.

***

The day of Uncle Jim's funeral came, grey and foreshadowing rain. After looking up at the threatening skies, Jim's niece grabbed two umbrellas before they headed out the door.

"Fitting," noted Aunt Barbara, holding the children close to her on either side as the limousine traveled to the cemetery. Barbara nodded before turning to stare at the changed Gotham outside her window and continuing to worry at the tissue in her hand. By the time they reached St. Brigid's it had started to shred.

Frankie helped them out of the limo, and with one of his large arms around Barbara's shoulder, started to climb the hill and ushered them towards the grave site. Jimmy Jr. cried as the procession went past him; he had begged to be allowed to somehow assist with carrying the casket, but he was still too young.

Barbara's heels sank into the muddy ground as she and her aunt stood holding hands throughout the ceremony. They were flanked by members of the Major Crimes Unit, both new and retired, that had worked with Uncle Jim. These men were her uncles, her family.

Father Stuart read from the bible, as he always did at these. Barbara was surprised he did not have it memorized; _she_ almost had it memorized after so many of these burials. This was not the first and would probably not be the last funeral that she went to for a police officer.

A distant cousin of hers-second and once removed? she could not remember-started to sing 'Amazing Grace' in a trembling tenor, and it was not the song, but the sound of the people surrounding her singing it that made her furiously blot at her eyes with a tissue.

A few people spoke, but the young woman was only half-following along. She looked over at Jimmy Jr, standing before Aunt Barbara, now watching stoically as they lowered the casket. His small fists were clenched at his side, and Barbara could see it was going to be hard in the months to come. She remembered standing in his place, just about the same age, watching as two caskets were buried. She had broken a finger that next week in school during the first of many fights in public school.

She didn't want to see either of her cousins start home schooling out of necessity, or learn from their 'uncles' how to punch properly in case they ran into their former classmates around the neighborhood. And she and Aunt Barbara would be up front and honest about how Uncle Jim died; if Uncle Jim had been honest with her from the start, than maybe she would not have-

"Barb?" came her aunt's soft voice at her side, shaking her out of her deep train of thought. She noticed that the ceremony was finished, for all intended purposes, and that it was time for people to share their condolences.

Wrapping that all-too-familiar numbness around her, she shook hands and accepted embraces from a long line of mourners. It was touching to see how many people had showed up. Yes, it had been kept quiet, but Lieutenant James Gordon had touched the lives of a great many people during his time in the GCPD.

When it was finally all over, they were supposed to go back to bar Frankie had opened since he had retired early. Barbara had no desire to go back yet; her family would be swapping stories and trying to find something good in all of this, and while all of that was fair and good, she wanted a little time to herself.

Harleen tottered over to her old friend, and embraced her with loud affections. "Barbara, I am so very sorry, sweets." Someone at some point had left the impression on the corn husk blonde that peppering her conversation with small endearments would get across the point that she cared. Barbara had never had the heart to tell her it spoke otherwise. "Are we meeting up with everyone at Frankie's?"

Barbara nodded and tugged at the collar of her raincoat. Behind Harleen the caretakers came out to finish burying the casket, and with their appearance Barbara found tears forming.

The younger woman tugged at her arm. "Come on, Barbie doll, you don't have to see this. The casserole is in the car. I think I should get that over to your place, too."

She shook her friend off and shook her head. "No, Harleen, I want to stay until this is done, if that's alright."

The student shrugged. "Yeah. You know what? I'll wait in my car. I need a smoke, anyway," she said before turning and starting her way to her little green car.

Barbara heard the singular transition of a fierce roar into the slowing purr of a motorcycle decelerating, and turned to see a cherry-red MV Agusta F4 park outside of the cemetery. The rider dismounted and started to amble in slowly.

"Barbara," called Father Stuart, who had just returned from a cell phone call. This was the same man who had given her communion for the first time, had confirmed her, had married her aunt and uncle, and had baptized her cousins. But for the past few years that had been the only time he'd seen her. "My condolences, child."

She knew she meant it, but the 'sorry's and the 'condolences' were getting old.

***

He arrived at the cemetery twenty minutes after he expected the funeral to be over. It was grey and the roads were slick, but Bruce Wayne isn't expected to have a motorcycle, so he sped through the streets, parking it just outside the entrance. The wind picked up and he zipped his jacket the rest of the way, the collar pressing into the underneath of his chin as he looked down, picking his way up the hill.

The cemetery was deserted, save for a few. The cemetery workers were finishing the burial and removing the chairs. A priest was speaking to a petite woman whose back was to Bruce, but he suspected it was Gordon's wife, if she had remained behind.

The others gradually left, but the woman stayed, arms crossed across her chest and an umbrella hanging from a strap about her wrist. She moved enough for Bruce to see her profile and it became quite clear that this was _not_ Mrs. Barbara Gordon.

She turned suddenly, staring directly at Bruce where he stood, semi-concealed by a mausoleum. "Can I help you?" she asked, sharply.

Bruce sidled over, trying to keep his look of embarrassment to a minimum. "I came to pay my respects, but I noticed I was a little late."

She shrugged tiredly. Up close, he was could see that she was young and a Gordon family member; she was, at the latest, in her mid-twenties with the same nose, forehead, and lines around the mouth as the Lieutenant. But the eyes studying him were a particular light blue and the lower lip she worried was a full one. He chastised himself for noticing that latter feature as he stood before Gordon's grave. "Better late than never, I guess."

"I'm so very sorry." He said it without thinking, really.

"How did you find out about the burial, Mister Wayne?" Her blue eyes pinned him to the spot.

"I asked around. I knew security would be tight, so I waited," he admitted. "Lt. Gordon was one of the responding officers the night my parents were murdered," he explained, and the harsh line of woman's black-clad shoulders softened slightly. She nodded.

"Same here," she said, with a small, sad smile. "Uncle Jim was a good man."

"Gotham won't be the same without him; he was an honest cop."

This seemed to please the girl, and he knew then she a cop's kid. It was the best compliment he could give and she knew it.

"Thank you, Mister Wayne. That's very kind of you to say."

The wind picked up again, and here on the hill without the buildings of Gotham to block it, it whipped the woman's hair around. Standing next to him, Bruce could see that his first impression of her height was correct. She barely came to his chin.

"Well," she said suddenly, "I've got to get back to my family." She gave him a small wave and then started her retreat towards a battered little Neon and it's blonde female drive, who flicked a cigarette out the window and started the car.

He realized afterwards that she had never told him her name.

***

"Was that who I thought it was?" asked Harleen, leaning over to unlock the passenger seat-side door after throwing her cigarette out the window. Any one who had ever read Gotham Times knew what the billionaire looked like. Barbara nodded and slid in. Like the driver, she immediately started to shuck her rain coat off. The car had grown quite hot and stuffy while it had sat, and the humid weather did not help the situation.

"It appeared that way, yes. Bruce Wayne wanted to pay my uncle his respects."

Harleen struggled with the clutch but finally got the car to switch from park to drive, and the wheels barely protested until she remembered that the emergency brake was still on. Little things like that gave her trouble.

"Jim knew Bruce Wayne?"

"I don't know," Barbara leaned against the window. She looked nervous. Harleen chewed at a cuticle as she waited for the light to change and tapped at the wheel with the other. It was too grey out, too depressing. Her eyes found the reflection in the side view mirror of the lime green car door and that cheered her up. Made her think of appletinis.

"Hmmm, I'm feeling like an appletini, sweetie. Does Frankie know how to makes those?"

"Probably not."

Damn.

***

The city was quiet the night that Gordon was buried. The lull left Batman feeling anxious. Unsettled.

There were some minor break-ins already being handled by police, so he decided to call it an early night; Bruce Wayne had an early business meeting the next morning, and for once he would need to pay attention.

Bruce was half-way though shutting the storage unit for the suit shut when the alternate cell phone started to vibrate its way across the computer station. He jogged over to pick it up.

It was Gordon's number. Bruce had been certain that the man would not have left the phone with anyone else, or have notified anyone of his specific number. It rang a second time before he decided on actually answering it.

"Who is this?" he asked, lowering his voice into Batman's rasp.

"Batman? It's Gordon." The man on the other end of the phone exhaled. "I'm alive and safe. Only two other members at Central know about it; guys I've known for years."

"I'm impressed." A wave of relief washed over the vigilante, and he sat down heavily into the computer station chair. "Got a plan?"

"Waiting, for now," the lieutenant responded, regretfully. "The Joker will make another move and when he does we'll improvise."

"Sit tight, Gordon. We'll get him."

He settled back into the chair and stared at the paused television. He had paused it on a frame of the video from the memorial for the Commissioner, and it was of Jim Gordon, mid-fall. He turned off the screen with a growing sense of ease. Batman was calculating, trying to figure out how to best handle the situation. The phrase 'ace in the hole' came to mind, but he quickly moved on. No use of card metaphors. Too touchy right now.

This changed everything.

***

"Don't go," whined the young girl on Barbara's air mattress before throwing herself back dramatically. "Mom can't do my hair right when she does them. And I _like_ it when you're here. I feel better." She stared at the ceiling petulantly-two years ago Barbara had helped her cousin put glow-in-the-dark stars up as an apology for missing so much 'girl bonding time'-and bounced her Sketchers on the edge of the bed, her foot occasionally hitting her bed. The room was a tight squeeze for the two of them, and had been for the past few days. "And Jimmy is just acting so stupid in school."

"It's a week, kid, and then I'll be back here to stay. How much trouble can you two get into?" Barbara paused from packing her laptop up and gave her cousin a stern look "That was rhetorical, not a challenge." Zipping the bag shut, Barbara dropped to sit next to her cousin, crawling behind her in an unpolished manner. It was easy to braid the red hair-much brighter than her's, which was so dark that it seemed almost brown-and wrap the stretch bands around the ends.

The two girls walked out to the kitchen, where her aunt was setting breakfast on the table. Jimmy was already seated, having set the table and poured the juice. They were all functioning as best they could, and so far, things were working as best as could be expected.

"Barbara, are you sure you don't want to wait for tomorrow? Maybe traveling on Saturday would be better?" Her aunt was worried. Of course she was.

"I've just got to settle my affairs, and finalize my job move. Then I'll be here so much you'll get sick of me."

After a long drive back to her Metropolis apartment, Barbara wearily unlocked the several locks on her apartment door.

The towel that she had left near the door was gone. Fear dissolved quickly into anger. After this past week she was tired, she wanted to sleep, and she had hours of email from her long trip back from Gotham City with a Blackberry that had a dead battery in her purse.

Damn it.

She took the mace out of her purse. The door showed no signs of forced entry as she quietly closed it behind her. Barbara toed off her shoes; she padded around the corner and pocketed the cordless phone. The windows were all still shut.

There was an old baseball bat in her bedroom, underneath the bed, too far away to even think of getting to. The petite woman started her search of the apartment.

"Barbara?"

Jim Gordon came around the corner, bowl of cereal in his hand. Barbara dropped the mace.

***

"Uncle Jimmy?"

The look of shock was clear on his niece's face. She leaned against the kitchenette counter and continued to stare at her uncle.

The choice to stay with his niece while he was hiding had been an easy one. His surrogate daughter's place of residence kept changing, and he knew with complete certainty that the address they had for her as an emergency contact in his file was two years old. For once her need to continuously move came in handy.

Of course, he had never given thought to the fact that the girl would obviously go stay with her aunt; his wife would need the help, and the young woman would be nothing but accommodating.

He had spent the last few days waiting. It left him nervous and agitated, particularly when he watched the news. He had tried to keep up with the news on the computer, but it had remained stubbornly locked and requesting his niece's password.

Jim put down the cereal bowl and embraced the disbelieving woman. "I thought you would be here," he explained, "I didn't expect you to go to Gotham."

"Does Aunt Barbara know you're alive?" she asked, sniffing loudly. Jim grabbed at the tissue box and she dabbed at her eyes.

"No, it's just you, me, a few guys at Central, and...someone else." Barbara gave him a horrified look, but he continued. "No, no, someone we can trust."

"Batman?"

He nodded. His niece had always loved his stories about his cases since she was a kid, but as an adult it was the ones involving Batman that really got her interest. He couldn't blame her; usually they were a lot easier to explain and shorter if he was involved. "I can't let your aunt know, honey. This is the only way to keep her safe. The Joker won't come after her and the kids if he thinks I am dead."

Barbara hugged him tightly. "I can't believe you're alive. This is a miracle."

Gordon pressed a kiss to her temple, and patted her back. "Now I have to apologize, but I just ate the last cereal in this place and finished off the milk. Don't you eat anything, girl?"

She quickly ordered Chinese takeout for the two of them and the Gotham lieutenant tried to tidy up the place.

Hours later, they had nodded off in front of the television, Chinese food still sitting on the glass coffee table and her email untouched. They used to do something similar when she was younger, with the old classic movies she couldn't get enough of. Gordon woke up suddenly when the phone in his breast pocket started to vibrate.

"Gordon," rasped the voice on the other end. "I take it you're safe?"

"Yes, I'm here in-"

"Don't tell me," Batman cut him off. "This is going too far, Gordon. I'm turning myself in."

Jim scrambled to sit up in the recliner. "What? No, Batman, don't!" The noise woke his niece, who look on, concerned.

"He's trying to target Rachel. He'll be going after Dent. It has to end. This is for the best."

"I'm driving back, Batman. I'll be there. We can do something else." It dawned on Gordon that he was pleading.

"Dent's calling a press conference, and I'll be turning myself in there. They'll be moving me from MCU to Central that night. Joker will make his move then. Be ready."

Gordon stared helplessly at the ended phone call blinking on his screen, feeling control slip steadily from his fingers.

"What's wrong?" asked Barbara. "What's happening to Batman?"

Gordon dropped the cell phone on the table, where it landed loudly. He ran a hand through his hair. The city needed Batman. Yes, he had lost two officers, but how many had been saved by his presence in the last year? The mortality rate of Gotham City Police Department for the prior year was still being calculated for reports, but they all knew it was significantly down from past years.

"He's turning himself in."

"No," the red head said forcefully. "No, he can't."

"It appears he is, Barbara, tomorrow in the morning at the press conference. I've got to get back tomorrow morning, start preparing. Batman is setting up a trap for the Joker with all of this."

"There has got to be something that we can do to stop him." The girl pulled the knit throw off of her lap and stalked over to her computer station. She keyed in the password, but then sat there, staring at it. "There isn't anything we can do, is there?"

"No, honey. There's not."

She sighed, and flexed her fingers on the armrests of the chair. "And you hate this as much as I do."

"I do," he replied. "Go get a few hours of sleep in your bed. I'll tell you before I leave."

The worry was clear on her face as she swivelled around in her chair. "I'm going back with you," she argued, firmly.

"But I need you here. I'm going to have Barb and the kids come here, if you don't mind." His plan was to get his family out of Gotham. Without them there as a concern, he could focus on finishing this.

She did mind, and he could tell, but she nodded. "Of course," she agreed with a sigh.

Gordon napped on the sofa, and in the morning when he woke up Barbara was in that yellow armchair of hers that smelled of cigarette smoke, cross-legged and eating eggs. The kitchen had been restocked, and he saw a box of Lucky Charms on the counter. She must have gotten up early to shop for her cousins and aunt.

"Press conference is about to start," she said, quietly.

About fifteen minutes later Gordon was grabbing up his clothing and stuffing into his duffel bag with one hand and desperately trying the number Batman had given him. Finally, he picked it up.

"That didn't go as planned, did it?" he asked, feeling jittery. Barbara's coffee had not been the decaffeinated sort he was used to, apparently. That, combined with adrenaline, was not helping the nervous man.

"Dent didn't give me a chance," growled the voice on the other end of the line. "They've got him at MCU, but otherwise this will go as planned. Good luck, Gordon."

Gordon clattered down the stairs to the parking lot and the confiscated car he had taken from Gotham's compound. The engine revved, and he was off.

***

1. This was the first thing I wrote after I scrapped my original story idea; I was feeling very visual and perhaps had been reading a bit too much Harris, but I still like it. It's a bit more trippy than I usually get. Look for another reference to his work a bit later on. (Yeah, the Bentadine. I love that word and the color is very specific.)

2. I honestly didn't write the whole coffee pot thing with that horrific amount of symbolism in it purposely. Gordon's existence on this spiritual plane as seen by the alarm on a coffee pot? No, thank you! I just wanted that sound in the background.

3. The Narrows being taken to create a larger space for Arkham is shown in _Batman: Gotham Knight, _which supposedly takes place between the Nolan movies. This means that anyone living in the Narrows has had to move.

4. Again, another reference to _Batman: Gotham Knight_. It's Killer Croc.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: Until it Fades to Dust  
Author: ** strangelittleswirl  
**Word Count: **7783 before footnotes  
**Rating: **PG-13 (minor swearing, mention of darker themes)  
**Disclaimer:**I do not own Batman or any of the characters. They are the property of DC comics, and this story is based in the Nolan-verse of _Batman Begins _and _The Dark Knight_, which are movies from Warner Bros . The title of the fic comes from the song "Choke" by Hybrid.  
**Summary: **Starting with the apparent death of James Gordon, his niece returns to Gotham City.

* * *

In the hours of painful waiting before James Gordon had high-tailed it back to Gotham, while he and his niece loudly ate Chinese food out of take-out boxes in her tidy little apartment, she had given him a small gem to mull over.

"Bruce Wayne came to your funeral," she suddenly stated, stealing a Chinese egg roll from the container on the glass coffee table-it was the sort of furniture that a parent of two young children would look at wearily, imagining the myriad of injuries that could arise from having it around children who continue to run about a house even after being admonished for it repeatedly-before shaking her head. "I don't think that I will ever get used to saying that-"

"I do feel a bit like Tom Sawyer," he chuckled while fiddling with the chopsticks. While James Gordon was not much of a reader, he did remember that particular book, and most specifically that image; it had struck him as peculiar enough for him to remember it for all these years.

"-So he said he felt obligated to come to your funeral. Said you were one of the detectives that responded to his parents' murder. He even called you an 'honest cop'."

James Gordon raised his eyebrows in surprise, because Bruce Wayne did not seem the sort of person who would remember something little like that. But there were those random instances of his thoughtfulness: Gordon remembered taking his wife to their favorite Italian restaurant to celebrate his promotion, only to find that the owner of Pasquale's Bistro now had a restaurant twice its original size simply because the billionaire liked the risotto; the solar panels on top of Wayne Enterprises were helping to power the city's Security cameras; several schools throughout Gotham had received new computers.

"Kind of strange, huh? I mean, the guy comes to that celebration banquet for the Major Crimes Unit's inception and doesn't even say a word to you-well, we know it's because he was too busy planning to crash Harvey Dent's fundraiser with all of those Miss Earth contestants-but he finds time and comes to your funeral."

He chewed thoughtfully on his food and the news. James could easily remember looking down in the precinct on Bruce Wayne as a youth, pale beneath his freckles, eyes wide with sadness and fear beyond his few years. He remembered the same look on Barbara's face.

"Life's been hard for him, Barbara, I've got a feeling he's not that 'Prince of Gotham' that the media labels him. He lost his parents, he went missing for years." At this he could not help but cast a meaningful glance over at his niece, who suddenly was too busy picking at a stir-fried pepper evading her chopsticks to look up at him, a look of studied blase crossing her face.. "I'm not saying that the boy is without fault, but you have to realize where he is coming from. I bet you two would have more in common then you would first think."

Barbara raised an eyebrow. "You mean a large collection of women's underwear in our homes? I wear mine, they weren't left here and I never found them on my nonexistent chandelier, thank you very much" she said in a surly tone before snorting and returning to the food.

James shook his head and pointed a bamboo utensil in her direction. "You're just being a smartass now, so I will leave it alone. Are you going to finish those dumplings off or not?"

His niece offered him the tin foil container.

* * *

Barbara bit her lip and pecked idly at the keyboard; the program she was working on was barely receiving any of the attention it should. It had been twenty minutes since her aunt and cousins should have arrived and the whole situation reeked of 'wrong'. Barbara rolled her neck, trying to keep the building tension in her muscles from becoming painful. Back in the day, she'd have gone out, though it usually resulted in bruises and bleeding. These days she had her therapist-given yoga tapes, and candles that were, in her opinion, exceedingly overpriced for something that smelled a bit like a psychedelic rock band concert.

Finally a call from her aunt came, telling her that they were sitting tight in Gotham, and no, under no uncertain circumstances was Barbara to come to Gotham; they were safe and so was she, and that was all that they could hope for.

Barbara looked at the paperwork sitting on her desk and tapped her fingers on the glass surface of her desk. She had already put in the paperwork for the location change request, and the carbon copy sat before her. She might as well start packing up some of the little trivial things so that she could speed things along. It was time to go back to Gotham City, anyway. Her life in Metropolis-as well as New York- was over, and she had finally come to terms with that somewhere in the past few years.

But on her way to the closet something on the television caught her attention, so the petite woman turned to face the television. Mike Engel was interviewing an accountant, someone who thought he knew who Batman was, so she had tuned him out before; Engel occasionally pulled tabloid tripe like that. But at the first words from the caller's voice, she had stilled.

"I have a vision," started the caller, in a sing-song voice. It was the sort of voice that left a feeling of unease in the pit of Barbara's stomach. She had cultivated that intuitive judgement as a way of survival long ago, and it stilled kept her safe. She turned the volume up.

"If Coleman Reese isn't dead in 60 minutes, I will blow up a hospital." Barbara felt icy-cold fear gnaw at her stomach. The chaos that would erupt would be unfathomable.

Her Blackberry beeped, in the little tone that notified her of an incoming text, and Barbara grabbed at it.

_Sit tight. All OK. STAY where u r!!!_ said the letters on the lit-up screen.

If her aunt and cousins _did _come to Metropolis, they would need her here. Driving to Gotham would cause her uncle more worry. Barbara would simply have to sit and wait, even if she hated it.

* * *

Harleen Quinzel kicked her heels off underneath her desk and stretched back in her office chair. It was one of those cheap ones that squeaked and protested when anyone sat in them.

"Hmm," she said. Maybe she would go out on another date with the Director. Make him buy her a new chair. There was that nice Italian place.

Harleen looked down at her shoes, patented black leather with red leather soles. Red and black. She liked that. She remembered the first time she had warn them. Almost fell over. Ha ha, she was a big girl, now.

Her first interview of the day had been with recently arrested Doctor Crane-well he _had_ earned that title, so she might as well call him by it-and it had been first thing in the morning. His schedule was a strict one, because most of his time was spent in solitary, heavily sedated. He was nice in the mornings. Still sort of sleepy, but not drugged. Sometimes he even made jokes.

There was sudden noise out in the hallway, and she was almost sure she heard screaming. Not that she didn't normally hear screaming-there _were_ lots of crazies-but usually it was not on any of the actual units. Her office was right next to the Directors in the administrative wing of New Arkham, and it sounded close.

The Director was knocking on her door. Oh, she hoped that he did not think he was getting another date. Wait, she wanted that new chair. Nevermind.

"Open, toots," she called out. Toots. She hadn't used that one in a while. One of her first foster parents had used that term. She'd been a neat lady; apartment in Queens. Cabaret singing had been her hobby, if she remembered correctly. Penchant for feather boas.

His usual pasty pallor was even more so as he came crashing into her office, his balding forehead already sweating.

"We've got to evacuate. The police department just called and said they are faxing a list of inmates that are to be ferried over first. Harleen," he started, but paused and swallowed audibly. "I want you on that ferry. You have to be safe."

That was sort of sweet. The man cared about her. She would go out with him again.

The college student pulled out her briefcase and starting throwing everything she could in, trying to ensure that every last piece of paper from her interviews was packed. Didn't want to have to do this somewhere else, like one of the hospitals. Gross. Several of the papers were classified documents that she had forgotten to return to the Medical Records department. Oops. They went into the briefcase as well.

The Director ushered Harleen and several other office workers out the door and into the cop car outside. They passed the employee parking lot and Harleen waved goodbye to her little green car.

The streets were complete chaos as the car made its way to the ferry. Someone tried contacting Harleen on her cell phone, but an administrator sitting next to her was too hysterical next to her to actually answer it and hear the caller. So this was what it was like in the back of a cop car. Fun.

Several school buses carrying the inmates pulled up behind and a slew of armed officers started herding the mass of orange towards the ferries. The crowd of Gothamites protested as Harleen and the group boarded, but she ignored them and hurried on.

Harleen was escorted to the top floor of the ferry, and there she finally pulled out her cell phone. The missed call was from Barbara Gordon. She could wait.

* * *

Barbara started to try any of her contacts in Gotham by cell and online. About an hour later, the report of the evacuated Gotham Central Hospital came in. Then _another _breaking news report came in: Mike Engel was hanging upside down, but so was the camera. The camera was shaky, as if it was handheld.

"I'm Mike Engel, for Gotham Tonight. What does it take to get you people want to join in? You failed to kill the lawyer. I've got to get you off the bench and into the game. Come nightfall, this city is mine, and anyone left here plays by my rules." Over Engel, Barbara could make out another voice, the nasal one from the call before, saying some of the lines at the same time. "If you don't want to be in the game, get out now. But the bridge and tunnel crowd are in for a surprise. Ha ha ha ha."

Screw that, she thought savagely. Barbara kicked the box she was packing out of the way and dialed her phone as she grabbed her car keys up. It was times like this, as she started to speed to the parkway, that she missed the speed of her bike and its ability to maneuver through the traffic so well.

"Come on, somebody, pick up. Pick up!" Barbara hissed into her phone. Harleen had always answered her phone, no matter what. Even the one time that had left Barbara just as embarrassed as whomever had been Harleen's unlucky beau that evening, since Harleen had seen no reason to stop their activities while she answered. The lack of an answer now did not bode well.

She made it in record time to the Gotham City Tunnel, but a police barricade prevented her from going any farther, even after explaining who she was related to. Now she had to do exactly as her uncle said, and waiting was not something she was adept at.

Her only comfort was that her aunt and cousins were being protected by a surveillance team that her uncle trusted, and that Batman was hopefully in the city as well.

* * *

"Help me, Alfred," called Bruce, jumping down from the platform before it reached the lower level completely. The billionaire starting to shuck his clothing off on his way over to the suit that Alfred had already taken out.

"Lucius is over in the R&D Department with the sonar set up. You've got a live mic over on the desk that will link you two together. He'll be able to keep you updated. I have the communication in the helmet set up wired between him and me, though." Alfred had always marveled out how easily Bruce Wayne slipped into his role as Batman; his sentences became terse and tense, edging effortlessly into that rasp that differed so greatly from the smooth voice that the public recognized as Bruce Wayne's.

"I'm going to need you here, however. This computer has the satellite control for the Batpod. If anything happens, enter the self-donate command." Batman stood before him now, tugging on the thick gloves. Alfred would answer with short 'yes, sir's, because that was all he could do when he was in this mood.

The tension that was building was one that Alfred had known before. In the past he had spent time like this preparing his rifle, cleaning and polishing the parts, ensuring that it would not fail him in the hours to come. Now he made sure that bat-shaped throwing stars were sharpened and at the ready, and that a small military tank-like vehicle had enough fuel in it for the night of tearing around Gotham.

The black costume-clad man strode over to his transportation and wheeled it back to the lift, stopping only to finish putting on the cowl. Alfred watched him click the tiny button that set the small electric current through the cowl that kept anyone from removing it. That had been a recent addition, after he had realized that he could be knocked unconscious, and that people would try to discover his identity. After all, he was only a man beneath that neoprene and Kevlar.

"Sir," called Alfred. "Please try to recall that you are not bullet proof."

The retreating figure did not answer. Alfred had raised Bruce Wayne better than that.

* * *

Harleen had started the ferry ride on the top floor with the other administrators, but after the engines and power had cut out and that person had talked to them, things had erupted into chaos.

A short while later Harleen was sitting huddled on the stairs on the ferry, biting at her thumbnail ferociously as people argued. An administrator suggested voting amongst themselves.

She wanted to live, she wanted to breathe. She didn't want to be in the ground. The cold, hard ground with the worms and the dirt and Larry Quinzel. Oh, yes she was a bad girl. Bad girls would go to hell and he would be there but she wanted to live.

"Harleen!" came a harsh voice at her side. It was one of the prison nurses, a look of concern on her weathered face. "Child, _breathe_."

The blonde did as she was instructed to do and found that the tightness she had not really been aware of in her chest lessened with it. The nurse gave her an chastising look.

"We are all in this, Harleen. But I know the Lord will pull us through."

Harleen could not help but look at the cross the nurse was wearing with contempt. She couldn't remember the woman's name, but she remembered the night her prayers weren't answered. God didn't help her. Maybe she wasn't good enough. God wasn't going to come through for a boat full of prisoners, the fucked up people who kept them in line, and one lone Christian lady.

Pushing herself up and clinging to the railing, she picked her way through the crowd to make sure she was close by the man doling out the voting cards. She didn't have a pen in her purse, but she had her lipstick. Her vote for 'yes' was a bright, garish red. It was called 'Cherry Bomb' red. Ha ha. Like that man on TV, papers flying up into the air and his tie defying gravity. Ha ha.

A prisoner who had snuck upstairs and was standing next to her looked down at the paper, just as she was folding it. He gave her an approving look.

"Good sense of self-preservation," he said, with some admiration. "You take care of yourself, don't you?"

She nodded, unsure of what else to say. She'd never seen this particular prisoner before, so he may have been housed in another part of Arkham, the part where they kept the less interesting ones.

"You and me kid, we're alike. Gotta take care of your self. Screw 'em all, huh?"

"Yeah," Harleen parroted. "'Screw 'em all'."

The votes got thrown out by someone who started screaming to blow the other ferry up. After a side-long glance at the prisoner next to her, Harleen started screaming as well.

* * *

The car had been turned off for hours to ensure that the battery didn't die or she ran out of gasoline. She left a message for her boss to tell him she would _not_ be into work the next day, and if he needed to know why then he could watch the news.

No one was answering her phone calls, and she was not close enough to the actual road blockade to hear any of the conversation on the officers' walkie talkies. Barbara bit her lip and tapped at the wheel. Desperate times, she thought as she pulled out her laptop and some headphones, call for morally gray measures.

Barbara was quite happy to see that it was a lot harder to access Gotham's communication mainframe than it had been in previous years. The ConfiTech symbol was embedded discreetly in the corner of the page, a sign that the company-and ultimately, Barbara-had been employed to secure their software.

Luckily, she still had her external TV-tuner in her laptop duffle. Soon enough she had figured out the new communications program for the police department and had tapped into the frequency. It took some time to figure out the internal audio settings in her laptop to make up for the high-pitched cues of the audio messages about to be played.

She had not been involved with the actual development of this part of the software, but she would be looking into suggesting an update to the sound quality of the program; there was no way her voice recognition software would be able to use the low-quality sound for what she had planned. She sat back and listened to the audio feed for hours, following along with the drama playing out on the other side of the tunnel.

.

* * *

Lucius was standing attentively before the bank of LCD screens, scanning the screens quickly.

"What do you think, Alfred?" he asked suddenly. He turned to look at the intercom with an expression of exhaustion and stress, knowing it was carrying over into his voice as well. "Are we going to make it?"

"Lucius, old friend, I honestly don't know."

"How's the suit holding up?" There was silence on the other side. "There should be some biofeedback readings from the suit on one of the screens, Alfred, tell me what you see."

There was the sound of scuffling on the other end. "Astounding; his heart rate is only slightly elevated. His oxygen levels are fine. It's showing that there is a great deal of heat radiating from one section of the suit. I'm assuming that it's a sign of an injury. I suppose I should prepare everything for sutures now, then."

Lucius had always known that Bruce was not completely gentle with his body, but from the tone of Alfred's voice it seemed that this was a fairly normal occurrence.

He'd have to work on some sort of padding, a shock system, maybe. After all, he was going to have plenty of time on his hands.

And while Lucius hoped there would be no reason for the suit after this, he did hope that there would someone to wear it.

* * *

Hours later, James Gordon returned thankfully to his house, happy to see it's small and orderly little porch, the garbage cans not at the curb because he had not been there to take care of them. It took a lot of effort to get up the front stairs; he could feel it in his knees and his back. James Gordon was an old man, and a tired one.

He looked behind him, half-hopeful for a black-clad figure in the shadows outside his house. At least then he'd know that his ally was safe. Whatever his new suit was made of, the material was most definitely not bullet-proof at a point-blank range.

His wife was holding open the door for him by the time he turned around. Her mouth was drawn in a tight line, and instinctively, he reached a hand out to trace the curve of her cheek.

"How many of those wrinkles were caused by me?" he mused out loud. She grabbed at his hand and pressed a kiss to it.

"I'll keep all of them and I'll keep gaining them if it means you're still alive...Going around, thinking you were dead...I don't think I can go through it again."

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her a little more fiercely, just the way he'd imagined doing as he paced his nieces apartment. He unlaced and removed his shoes before following Barbara through their tiny foyer and into their living room. Two small blonde and red heads poked over the back of their love seat.

"The kids wanted to wait up for you." His wife squatted next to the children and tried to rouse them.

His youngest opened her eyes first, and propelled herself off of the couch and into her father's arms.

"Daddy!" she shrieked. Jimmy woke up at the sound, and wrapped his arms around his father's waist.

All that was missing was his niece, and he'd be content for the time being.

* * *

Lucius allowed himself into the penthouse with the key and fingerprint identification system. He ensured that the door was closed before continuing down the hall.

"Boys?" he called. There was some movement upstairs, so he climbed to the second floor.

Bruce was sitting up in his bed, hair wet from the shower. Alfred was squatting next to the edge of the bed and taping gauze down on his abdomen. The billionaire looked up as his friend entered the room.

"Lucius," he greeted him, and the usual finishing-school crispness was missing from the pronunciation. The man was surely exhausted, but he gave him a wry smile and chuckled. "You missed the show."

Alfred shook his head with a snort. "You missed me prying a bullet out of his abdomen and after cleaning the area, he tried to burn it shut with one of those little pod-things you gave him. Nearly knocked him out just so I could stitch it up. Now honestly, Mister Bruce, sit _still_."

The younger man chuckled softly, but the sound turned into a hiss. Lucius could feel a migraine coming on; he massaged the bridge of his nose.

"I'm just going to head out to check up on Gordon" Bruce started, and Alfred looked up at his employer dubiously. "His family shouldn't have been involved. I am obligated to make sure they're all fine. So will you need help with boxes for Monday?"

The newcomer to this madness shook his head. "No, Bruce. Don't expect my resignation..._just _yet. I'm quite proud of what you did."

"Go home, Lucius." Bruce pivoted, swinging his legs over the side, and Alfred helped him out of bed. "The next few days will be quiet ones, anyway. I'm thinking of handing the R&D Department over to someone more qualified, like my CEO. Running things past him might be a better idea than undermining him in the future."

Lucius left and started the drive to his home. At one point he heard the identifiable sound of the Batpod revving down the street, but he did not look back or try to follow out of curiosity.

He needed sleep, and he needed to prepare for Monday.

* * *

Somewhere ahead of her in the patch of traffic, Barbara heard the sound of car motors rev up just before an officer with a megaphone came by, swaggering his way down her row. She slipped a headphone off of one of her ears so that she could hear.

"The bridge has been scanned for bombs. It came up clean and is now open. Proceed carefully." The terse commands echoed as he continued to walk away.

The young woman removed her headphones completely and placed the laptop on the seat next to her before she started the ignition, sitting up from her slumped position to see over the dashboard.

She was happy to see the street lights on the other side of the tunnel, an hour later. It had been a steady crawl through, with several instances where she had turned off the engine to conserve and to help with the choking air outside the car.

The city was deadly quiet as she drove out to South Hinkley, taking the quickest route possible but finding it to be just as long as going the other way because of traffic. In the distance she could make out the lights of the ferries at the docks. Harleen was down there, she mused. Poor girl, she'd have to set up a lunch date with her soon. Her blonde, gangly friend always responded well to the invitation of caffeine and a sympathetic ear.

Finally she reached the ramp for South Hinkley and eventually made her way off. Relief and exhaustion washed over her as she shut the car door and locked the vehicle before she bound up the porch steps.

Aunt Barb came cautiously to the door, but gave her niece a tired smile before unlocking he door and pushing the screen door open for her. "We're all okay," she reassured her. "Everything is just fine, honey."

"Like _hell_ it is," Barbara fiercely responded. "I heard what happened; you guys were in that warehouse. What was going on?"

Her aunt opened her mouth, but then decided to change her mind and instead ushered her niece into the house. Her other family members were sitting crammed onto the love seat, both of her cousins half-sitting on her exhausted uncle. She swooped down to give him a kiss on the cheek, and did the same to her cousins. The sight of everyone together and safe was enough to reaffirm her desire to return to Gotham; she needed to be here. Even if she could not do a single thing to help the situation, at least she would not be left unable to reach her family. Barbara Gordon was not meant to watch and wait like that.

* * *

Frankie showed up a short time after that, dispensing mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers to the younger Gordons, who followed their cousin into the kitchen. Their happiness over the treat evoked a laugh from the girl, who ushered the other two children into the kitchen for plates.

Frankie lumbered over to James and pulled him into a mighty one-armed hug; the commissioner patted him on the back.

"Thanks for keeping an eye on the everyone, Frankie."

His friend shrugged and mumbled quietly under his breath, tearing a hand through his greying hair as he did so. Their line of work was a harsh one, but Frankie had gotten out as early as he could, and there was the occasional moment or two in which James Gordon envied him. But then a sense of purpose and commitment would cause him to turn his attention towards working on whatever problem was before him, and he'd dismiss the idea of retirement. If the city was going to get better, it needed clean cops. He might not be the best, but he was one of those. And if the city needed its Batman, Batman needed someone on the inside. As long as he could keep it up, he'd be that cop.

"Heard that Sal Moroni survived that car crash. Oh, and some of the other guys may stop by," Frankie said, settling himself onto the now vacated love seat. His bulky shoulders and wide body took up so much space that James' children would not have been able to sit with their uncle. "They said they want to talk to you, find out what went down earlier."

James took his glasses off and carefully cleaned them on the edge of his shirt, instead of showing any response to what his friend had said. Frankie laughed, a deep, raspy noise.

"I told them that you probably weren't going to be all that open; but you know the guys. So, now there's a hunt for Batman, huh?"

"Looks like it, Frankie," he answered with a sigh. "But I really-I don't want to talk about all of that right now."

The others shuffled in; they were a large group of brothers, in some sense of the word at least. At some point they had all worked together on the force, and these men could all be seen in photographs scattered about the room. There was another member of their group, a stocky man with a shock of red hair who was usually seen with a good-natured grin and an arm around James' shoulder: Detective Roger Gordon.

His older brother had been a promising member of the police force, and had been a major proponent of the creation of the Technology Crimes Unit. Roger and James had been exceedingly close throughout their childhood and adult years; when Roger said he was going to marry Thelma, an ex-girlfriend of James', the younger brother was nothing but thrilled. And how could he ever hold that against his older brother? His niece had been the product of that marriage, and she had been the light in then-single James Gordon's life.

He still missed his brother and sister-in-law. He missed their candor and brightness. He missed the family that they had created. Prior to their deaths, the three had been talking about purchasing a house in a nicer neighborhood, maybe in Jerold if they played they were able to save enough.

His brother's daughter came back out from the kitchen and the men all greeted her.

"Hey, Squirt!"

She smiled and leaned against the door. "How are my favorite uncles?"

"Old," responded one of her uncles, petulantly. James wasn't sure which one of the men it was, because they all seemed to respond to that question in the same manner. They were all getting old; there were wrinkles and streaks of grey and coughs and creaking bones. Old men with no new young men to take their places.

"Still the uncles I love," she said, trying to console them as she unfolded herself from her spot. There was movement in the kitchen, and then all four of Gordon's family members started to climb the stairs. "Night, boys," she called over her shoulder. James' children waved on their way to bed. His wife looked at him, the clock, and back at him pointedly before following the other three. He'd herd them out soon, anyway.

"Jimmy," admonished on of the guys. "Ain't ya gonna offer us beers?"

"Of course," he said before scrambling out of the recliner. Where was his brain? In about a billion different places right then.

* * *

Barbara closed the door to her cousin's room and leaned against the railing for a moment. She considered some sort of security system for her uncle's new home, perhaps cameras on a wireless feed, motion detectors maybe, the sort of things. Granted, her aunt and cousins had left the home willingly, but it couldn't hurt. Of course, suggesting something meant admitting she had some sort of knowledge in the area, and all that her uncle knew was that she was very good with programming, that all of those funny ones and zeros made sense to his niece.

She could rig something without his knowledge, but the idea left a prickly hot feeling of guilt in her gut. She would just suggest a security company; but would do research first.

The red-haired woman decided that leaning against the railing, well within earshot of the living room, was not entirely polite, so she started to move from the landing to the stairs. She had taken a few steps before she processed what she heard downstairs.

"-gotta be without Gordon knowing. He still considers Batman to be some kind of hero. The psycho killed Harvey Dent, for God's sake."

"There's that signal on the roof of MCU. Lighting malfunction my ass, we turn that on at night, the guy will come flapping down."

The door to the garage opened as one of her uncles was in the middle of a sentence agreeing, and the conversation suddenly changed to the Gotham Knights season.

The Gordon girl had seated herself at the top of the stairs, but now used her grip upon the rungs to push herself up. Her blood was pounding loudly in her ears, and she could feel her hands shake with indignation. As soon as they were gone, she'd tell her uncle, she decided. Before then, and her uncles might find out that her Uncle Jimmy knew about their plan.

Barbara worried at her lip as she went in to check on her two cousins, both of whom had opted to sleep in the bunk beds in Jimmy's room. For a few minutes she simply stood in the doorway and listened to their even breathing. Poor kids were exhausted.

It was only for an instant, but she saw it. There was movement on the fire escape, something dark moving across the window, and Barbara moved over to the window as quietly as possibly to see what it was. Jimmy's baseball bat was leaning against the dresser, so she picked that up.

Seeing who it was, Barbara dropped the baseball bat and pushed the window up, happy to see that it was quiet enough not to disturb her slumbering cousins. She crouched and used mostly her arm strength to ascend as quicky as possible onto the roof.

"Wait!" she panted, realizing that she was much too out of breath. Barbara had gotten out of shape; that was going to change. "Stop, please!"

He did, perched on the edge of house. He eyed her, and she found herself approaching him cautiously. There was something animalistic about the way he moved, something slow but powerful in his movement, and she had the feeling-and the knowledge, really-that he could lash out if he needed to.

"My uncle-he's downstairs. Doesn't know," she said, trying to catch her breath. "The next time that light goes on, it's not going to be him. Some of the others in MCU, they're setting a trap."

"Why are you telling me this?" he rasped. From where she stood now, she could make out the hazel-brown color of his eyes.

"Because I'm with my uncle on this; Gotham needs you. And you behind bars and outed would be like exposing the truth about Santa Clause to a little kid." She licked her lips. "So please, _please_ don't come to MCU tomorrow."

Down below she heard the sound of the screen porch door slap against its frame, and could hear the rumbling of her uncle's friends as they made their ways out to their cars and homes. She leaned over the edge out of curiosity. There was the small sound of gravel in a boot scratching the ledge, and by the time Barbara turned around, she was standing by herself on the roof.

* * *

After the ferries had returned, Harleen and the inmates were transferred back to the Narrows by school bus and squad car. There, the Director had sequestered the young woman in her office, imploring her to stay, just stay, until everything was sorted out. He'd see to her getting home safely.

Harleen knew what he wanted, after how stressful the day had been. She was happy that she had just put fresh sheets on before leaving for work that morning. Good to always be prepared.

There was a great deal of noise at the end of the hall-more than usual-and Harleen could stand it no longer. She pushed herself out of her old chair and teetered down the hallway to see what was going on.

She went over to the receptionist Betty. Betty was a lovely old woman who smelled of cat food and always had a paperback in her top drawer, usually something with a pink or purple cover that had a bare-chested man ravishing a protesting woman. Silly women, they wanted it. Harleen knew this because she had gone through Betty's drawers and she used to be one of those women. Silly, silly things.

"What's going on, Betty?" Cat food smell. Meow. The novel went back into the drawer. Bare-chested hunk. Rawr. Betty cleared her throat nervously.

"They said they caught that Joker, the girls all want to see him. See that," she gestured with a pudgy finger to her chin area, "you know."

Oh, the smile. The creepy smile that made Harleen's stomach go all squishy like when she was watching the patients get injections or when they showed her their scars. Kinda gross. Kinda cool. Maybe a little scary.

"Oh," she said slowly, and shifted back on her heels. "I think I'll go, too."

There was quite a crowd. Officers were bringing men in various medical clothing, and there were more security guards with guns beside them. It was like a parade. Where were the balloons?

It was easy to tell when they started to bring in the Joker. There was a crowd of police and SWAT team members surrounding him, like some sort of bee-hive. And at the center of it, at the heart of it all, like the queen bee, was the Joker.

He seemed to be slumped, like if they weren't holding his hands behind his back, he'd pool into a puddle on the floor. But although his head was down, he seemed to be watching everyone , eyes constantly moving, roving over the crowd present.

His eyes continued their sweep and landed on her where she stood next to Betty Cat Food and Nurse Lady. He stood a little straighter but cocked his head as he stopped walking.

"Well," he said, slowly, sounding each letter nice and slow. "The decor is sure nice around here."

There was a little bit of a chill that passed through her as those dark eyes swept over her, appraising as they did. She looked at his face, at the cheeks. There was the squishy feeling. Gross. Cool. Scary.

"Come on, you," said the bulky SWAT team member handling him. He jerked the criminal to keep moving.

The eyes continued their search around. The Joker shook his head, and smacked his lips as if preparing for a meal, and continued down the hall to the reception room.

The squishy feeling remained with her, and all through dinner with the director she could still feel those eyes on her.

* * *

James Gordon, beer in hand, decided to go check upon his children. There was the sound of something on the fire escape, and before he could pull his gun, his niece was scrambling through the window.

"It's me!" she whispered as she nimbly slipped back into the room. Seeing the ease with which she snuck back in only confirmed James' old suspicions. She seemed to know what he was thinking, because as she tugged at her blouse down, she smiled. "Yes, I used to in the Narrows. I don't think your eyebrow has ever been any higher than it is right now."

The two adults slipped back out into the hallway, and he waited for his niece to give him an explanation.

"Has everyone gone home?" she asked, peaking over the banister. He responded that they had. "Good. Good. Okay." Barbara was still nervous, it seemed. "They were talking while you were out in the garage, Uncle Jim. The guys still on the force are setting up a trap to get Batman. It's not even that good of a plan, really; Batman knows now that you're all chasing after him, so why he would show up when that light is turned back on, I wouldn't know."

James could hear it as he ground his teeth, and could feel his temples starting to throb. "Those bastards. What that man does for this city, I mean-for Christ's sake, he was _shot_ earlier."

His niece cursed under her breath. "Uncle Jim, he was here."

No, this was not good, not good at all. James started down the stairs, grabbing his coat off the banister as he went. His wife may be waiting for him upstairs, but sleep and everything else had to wait.

"I told him already," she called after him. "I told him that you'd contact him another way. Go get some sleep, you deserve it."

Panic momentarily abated, Gotham's commissioner made his way back up the stairs. It was good to sleep at home again, under his sheets that smelled like his detergent and his wife's perfume. She sighed and turned towards him, and her wedding ring gleamed in the low light.

How had he gotten so lucky? He'd been an aging detective raising a teenager, and she was a young widow. The two Barbaras had gotten along immediately and his life was richer for it.

Gordon looked over to his bedside table to see the time, and cursed quietly; his cell phone was missing from its usual spot which meant that it was in the pocket of his jacket downstairs. Carefully, he extricated himself from the bed and padded down the stairs.

The phone buzzed to life soon after he removed it from the jacket. It was timing like this, he thought as he saw the number on the screen, that left him wondering if his caped friend was some sort of psychic.

"You took a bullet for my family tonight," he said. That was something he liked about these conversations. They were terse and to the point, and there were no unnecessary formalities on either side. No bullshit, he would have said, if he was younger.

"Your son. How is he?"

"Just fine, a little shaken, but everyone is fine. My niece said she spoke to you."

"Meeting at MCU is out of the question if what she said is true. Is she trustworthy?"

Gordon looked over at his niece, asleep on the couch in the living room. Twenty-four, and three of her years spent God knew where...but she came back, and she always did when the family needed her. He remembered her at twelve with her arm in a cast explaining to him why she _had_ to punch her classmate. "They called daddy a 'dumb cop' and then I started the fight," she had said, not trying even to hide that she had started the fight.

"To a fault," he responded with a tired sigh. "She would never lie about something like that. Be happy she's taken your side; Barbara's a loyal girl."

"Keep the cell phone on, Gordon."

Gordon nodded, not sure if Batman could see him. "Always do. You need to rest, Batman." Somewhere along the way, he'd guessed the man was probably a bit younger than him; he'd started to take up a bit of a paternal concern for the man.

"Crime doesn't," was the response, and the line went dead.

* * *

In a lovely beachfront home with all of its lights off at the end of Dunn Street a phone rang. It was not the house's main line; there were several cordless phones connected to that line, and they all would have started up in their shrill little tones at the same time, waking everyone in the house, if that had been the case. No, there was only one phone connected to this particular line that started to ring in the picturesque house, and it was next to Sheela Meroni's bed.

The middle-aged wife fumbled for the phone blindly with one hand while she removed the green gel face mask from her face with the other. In the dark, the wrinkles of her hands were greatly exaggerated, and she made a mental note to figure out a regimen for that in the morning.

"Hello?" she asked, finally answering the phone. It was an old Princess phone, with one of those horrifically annoying curling cords. There was no ID on it, but she knew the few people who had the number, so it made no difference.

"Half of the family got to the resort. I just checked; they got there safely."

"I thought that there was an accident." She sat up and examined her engagement and wedding rings as she listened to the heavily breathing person on the other side. "Isn't that why things are the way they are?"

"Your husband was smart and made sure that your family members didn't all travel on the same plane. Didn't tell you or anyone else."

Sheela rolled her eyes and tried to keep herself from scowling, since it caused wrinkles. This wire-tap was a _bitch_, honestly. So half of the money was in the Carribean bank account. That was good.

Sal had thought he had married a good Italian girl who would shut up and look pretty and sleep with him when he wanted it. That was not Sheela, much to his delight and discontent. Her mom had been a shrewd business woman, and had taught her daughter that the best investments a girl could make were in, first and foremost, a good pair of stilettos, and second, good stock paper for the wedding invitations. People gave good gifts if they thought it was a good wedding. With these two tools, a girl could set herself up quite nicely, and as long as she kept an eye on her husband's business, she'd be just fine.

"Thanks for giving me an update; keep me posted on how they're doing down there," she said before hanging up and rolling back over to sleep.

Stupid Gotham Police fuck, messing with her sleep. She needed those nine hours interrupted, thank you very much. Moles could wait for the morning.

The dial pad light when out as she hung up, and the Cape Carmine beachfront home was dark once more.

* * *

Sorry about the tardiness of this chapter; I'm into my finals here at college and as I am in four writing intensive courses, I've had mountains of work to get through. That and the ever present family drama llama made an appearance in the front yard, morosely chewing on the grass.

Also, this chapter started out a great deal shorter than the first one, and I was afraid I'd have to combine two chapters. Sheela and James' boys came to the rescue, as did Lucius and Alfred. I expect that sort of thing from the latter two, though.

Thank you for all of the reviews! Over the next few weeks I am planning on responding to each of them.

1. The coffee table bit was inspired by Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle. The little cousins nearly went careening through a plate glass coffee table, and those of us with prior child-rearing experience of any sort have all tried to persuade them to get rid of it.

2. Pasquale's Bistro is taken from some of the RPG stuff for Dark Knight, and the expansion of the restaurant was mentioned in one of the news pieces.

3. Barbara's past in New York is something different than what's covered in any of the comics. She's not the Barbara Gordon of the comic-verse or any of the series or movies, she's here for the Nolan world, and I've thought very hard about motivation for her and her decisions and personality. There will be more about it in the future.

4. Harley is becoming the most entertaining of the perspectives as far as writing is concerned. The choppy, abrupt style with no real attention to grammar is intentional, I promise.

5. 'Cherry Bomb' red is a color of lipstick put out through CoverGirl. It's quite loud and appropriate for Harleen.

6. Alfred mentions a 'little pod-thing', and this is taken from Gotham Knight.

7. Gordon's home's location and names for places around Gotham are taken from several maps. Links for my sources will be over at my livejournal community for this fic, which can be located through my profile here on Fanfiction-dot-net.

8. Sal Moroni's car flipped in the Dark Knight, but it was never specifically said that he died. I need him alive for this story, so he lived, miraculously.

9. Barbara's 'prickly hot feeling of guilt' is supposed to be a foil to Harleen's squishies. There's a lot of mirroring and foils in this story, and for the most part, they are intentional.

10. While Barbara has not been in Gotham, her uncle has been keeping her up-to-date. She admires his work in the city, but like any sane person, finds him a bit intimidating when she first meets him. She's not perfect, she's entirely human, and having her sass Batman at the start? Not entirely realistic, my dears. I'm really trying to think 'Nolan', here.

11. Betty is not Catwoman, and never will be.

12. Sheela Moroni sprung up when I needed someone to answer that phone, and she appeared at the other end of a hand with a huge ring on it. I think I'm starting to love to hate her a little.


End file.
